Updated November 5, 2026, 7:56 a.m. ET
A young woman was browsing Hinge when she noticed something seemed slightly off with Johnno, a young man she was in a relationship with.
When she asked him if his photos were AI, he replied: “Hahaha, I appreciate it, no, no AI here.”
But a reverse image search showed otherwise, revealing that Johnno, or whoever was impersonating him, had used AI to fake his face in photos of other men on Pinterest.
When the woman shared her experience on a TikTok that had 1.2 million views, something even stranger happened in the comments section. The women posted screenshots of the profiles of Andy, Roger and Ben, each with different facial features and hair, but sporting the same flannel shirt and linen pants that Johnno wore, against the same seafront backdrop.
“I realized the guy I was talking to was using AI photos from this post…” one user commented. “I came across a guy who did this too!! Every photo came up in a photo search on Pinterest,” one woman commented. “It’s a breeding ground for catfish and it’s going to get worse, so buckle up,” another user commented.
These increasingly subtle and hard-to-detect edits are a problem that dating experts say is becoming more common as users navigate a barrage of artificial intelligence in the dating world, from AI-assisted prompts and conversations to increasingly sophisticated photo edits.
Amy Chan, dating coach and author of “UNSINGLE: How to Date Smarter Men and Create Love That Lasts,” says her clients have experienced an increase in AI-altered images and conversations.
How AI is changing the dating world
AI is rapidly changing the world of online dating for young people, as more than half of adults under 30 report using dating apps like Tinder, Match, Bumble and Hinge, according to 2023 data from Pew Research.
2026 data from Match and the Kinsey Institute reveals that nearly four in 10 American singles have used AI in their dating lives. The trend is particularly relevant among younger users, with 67% of Gen Z singles reporting using AI.
A series of new apps such as Your Move AI, FireTexts, Keys AI and Rizz work as AI wingmen, analyzing conversations and offering options on how to respond. And AI-native dating apps like Amata, Known, Sitch, and Ditto use artificial intelligence as the basis of their matchmaking technology.
In other viral videos, women recounted similar experiences with profiles like Johnno.
“This might be one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on a dating app,” content creator Dana Kuritzkes says at the start of the video about a friend’s experience meeting a man using AI-generated photos on Hinge in the Bay Area. “His first thought, and I quote, was, ‘Why do all these photos look like stock footage?'”
In the video, she scrolls through screenshots of the profile, examining staged photos from a hike and one in a cave where people’s fingers are missing from the glasses.
Online dating coach Austin Dunham said a friend sent him screenshots of a Hinge user who had cloned a photo of him from Instagram in a white shirt against a palm tree.
“The fact that women understand this and can spot where things are coming from shows how many men are actually starting to use AI photos,” Dunham explained in a September 17 TikTok. “I think this is going to cause a really big epidemic in terms of the online dating space,” Dunham said.
Chan says there’s nothing wrong with using AI for grammar help when editing a biography. But using AI primarily to create a personality, or modifying the one you need to make it more interesting, is a problem.
While contenders may think they seem smarter or funnier by using AI to create their bio and prompts, Chan warns that it could have the opposite effect.
“Someone can read it, detect the AI copy and not want to interact with you anymore,” says Chan. “Authenticity is a value that people crave more than ever, (and) by using boozy responses, AI is the antithesis of that.”
Dating apps know they have a photo AI problem. More and more people are implementing live verification
Brandon Wade, founder and co-CEO of Seeking.com, says the platform has seen a proliferation of AI, with some people registering accounts under multiple phone numbers and testing alternative profiles to compare results.
“People realized it was about numbers,” Wade says. “Through the use of AI, they can now manage multiple dating profiles across multiple different sites to be able to get the results they want.”
Wade warns that these AI profiles can also be linked to scammers who target vulnerable people looking for companionship or professionals with disposable income.
The platform introduced a Selfie Liveness Check in January 2025 to check a live selfie against uploaded profile photos. Data from 2025 revealed that the new feature captured 53,000 scammers on the platform, many of whom posed as fully generated users of different races, ages and genders. Seeking.com found that the majority of these scammers came from romance scam hotspots in Africa and Southeast Asia.
“We’re seeing more of this type of activity from scammers as they try to expand their network and target people that way. With real encounters, it’s not a behavior we see as often,” says Wade.
Tinder and Bumble have also started requiring similar biometric facial verifications for US users.
Hinge offers optional AI-powered features to help users improve their prompts. They use a combination of AI-based moderation tools and human moderators to verify profiles. In March 2026, they began rolling out Face Check, a verification process that uses a selfie video to confirm a person’s authenticity and that their face matches their profile.
“The authenticity of our community is important in helping dating find safe and meaningful relationships,” Ben Celebicic, Hinge’s chief product and technology officer, told USA TODAY. “If a user decides to include generative AI on their profile, this should not be used to misrepresent themselves or their intentions. Our goal is to ensure that our users only use AI to make reliable connections with other dating, so they can find love and delete the app.”
The problem with these verification processes, online commenters point out, is that many instances of AI use a person’s real face, bypassing verification processes, but then change subtle elements of a photo to make their clothing, physique or background more interesting. These apps also face privacy concerns from users regarding how facial verification videos and photos are collected and stored.
Chan says it’s the digital equivalent of lying, and the same goes for over-filtering a photo. In the comments, men pointed out that they had also encountered AI-powered photos on women’s profiles, as well as heavily edited photos.
“I’ve had clients show me their profile, and I’m like, ‘That doesn’t look like you.’ They get defensive, and I have to tell them straight up, that the photo has been edited so much, or it’s a really old photo that they’ve edited, that they’re setting themselves up for a bad date,” Chan says.
Instead, she advises clients to keep their profiles realistic and true to themselves. She recommends exchanging a few messages and jumping straight to video chat or IRL.
Otherwise, users risk going back to square one.
“The person will feel shocked and cheated and it’s usually impossible to bounce back on a first date,” says Chan.
Rachel Hale’s role covering youth mental health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Contact her at rhale@usatoday.com and@rachelleighhale on X.
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